July 17, 2010

JK LOL I’m not depressed about life, just my attempts at writing. I had a big long post ready to go but decided I hated it and instead made this cop-out of a thing. Hate when that happens, but I didn’t want to bore you with pointless ramblings. Instead, I’ll bore you quickly with a bullet point version of what I was working on.

– Understand this article became the big source of debate on various message boards occupied by foreigners living in Japan. A lot of folks didn’t like the article because of it’s negative tone regarding Japan (fair enough) and because the numbers seemed suspect.

– Understand how weird this sounds to me, because the only counter to the facts and numbers laid out in the article are anecdotal stories akin to “I know a Japanese dude who totally uses the Internet!” That, and the total ignorance of folks not understanding this is written for a Western audience by an industry desperate to make money/score page views. Basically, I have a journalism degree and think I understand some of this more than other people making dumb claims and I kinda want to punch myself in the face.

– Realize technology in Japan is kinda in the middle! The internet gets used far less, but cell phones do all sorts of stuff and people seem to be glued to those.

– I listened to “Ballad Of Big Nothing” as I wrote about 500 words on this subject because the more message boards I read, the more I thought this whole deal was sorta pointless.

– Speaking of! I think most people who want to cut JET tend to be people on JET for some reason. Because whenever I talk to a Japanese person about it they really like the program and would like to see it stick around.

– They seem really shocked when I mentioned a lot of JETs think Chinese should be taught instead of English, too.

– One friend of mine compared Chinese to a Grandma and English to a lover. A nifty metaphor if you think about it from a Japanese perspective (hint: Japanese descends from Chinese, English doesn’t so it takes way more effort to learn). Though I’d like it because I’d much rather fool around with English than Chinese.

– Someone reading that just laughed.

– Moral of the story…sometimes foreigners don’t know everything about what the Japanese think!

– Read this blog if you want to stay up to date on Japanese happenings, it’s really good. Pretend Rupert Murdoch doesn’t have anything to do with it.

– The new chicken sandwiches at McDonald’s taste amazing.

– So good, in fact, I’ve suddenly become self-conscious about my body again and am now eating nothing.

– A very important personal anniversary passed recently, and when this crossed my mind I realized how happy I am at the moment and felt overjoyed at how everything shook out in the end. Basically, I love life at the moment. Sorry, Elliott Smith brings out these vague emotions.

– Friday I agreed to sing “Thriller” in front of the entire student body of one of my schools in October. Hooooo boy.

OK, just in at 500 words! Saved ya a lot of needless reading.

(Japanese Fun Fact #75: If enough people get drunk at an enkai, the night will end with all the male teachers taking turns throwing one another into the air like they just won a critical football game. Needless to say, I was tossed in the air three times.)